A Prince's Tale: Rewritten
by wrestlefan4
Summary: From Spinner's End, to Hogwarts, to that day of bullying which changed it all, and beyond. Could things have been different for a boy called Severus Snape? Would his words change her mind, and could her love rescue him from the dark path ahead of him?
1. Spinners End

_A/n: In my head this was going to be a chapter fic but I'm now on the fence about it. If you like the story go ahead and alert it though, because in the end Snape-who by the way I don't own, Ms. Rowling does-will probably convince me to go on with it. Warning!: This first part does contain violence. If you don't like, don't read. If you do read, reviews are much appreciated! One last thing-I know I'm not the first to do a rewrite like this...but hopefully, I do good at my own version of it though it will follow many things canon.  
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><p><em>In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small... -Charles Dickens "Great Expectations"<em>

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The city of Cokeworth sat under the dark cover of night. Against the raven backdrop a tall tower loomed upwards like the dreadful monster in a child's horror story, though it didn't lurk in a closet or breathe heavily beneath the bed. No, it was visible always. During the day time it belched dark clouds into the pale, lifeless sky, and at night it was quiet but seemed ever watchful as the moon hung just above its peak to give it an eerie glow. Under the dark eye of the chimney and the pale face of the moon, sat row upon row of small houses, nearly identical, along dirty brick streets littered with garbage and riff raff. Drunks hunkered in the gutters and wove along the streets, tripping over broken stones and strewn rubbish. In shadowed alleyways men slept on whatever they could, or leered around corners, eyes and teeth glinting wolfishly in the night, waiting for prey to fall upon them. Women with broken teeth and greasy hair haunted the corners and disappeared with men who would treat them badly, but for a few coins it didn't matter anymore.

During the day, men would file in their clunky boots and half-buttoned shirts, down to the mill—if they still held a job there. Even as the cities main source of employment it didn't fare well. More men were laid off every day it seemed, their haggard faces screwed up into misery as they plodded with stooped shoulders towards homes that held nothing but uncertainty behind their closed doors. How would there be food on the table? It was a struggle and common question for many, and chins were down more than they were up.

The poorest lived near the river, on a derelict street called Spinners End. Spinners End was where no one wanted to end up. The lowest of the impoverished lived there in tiny run-down houses. The stinking odor of the polluted river permeated everything down there, and it was a local jibe to say that it wasn't the river, but the people of Spinners End who gave off the pungent stench. There was always something wrong going on in Spinners End, but any authorities had long since given up responding. The one thing about Spinners End was that no matter what vermin lived there, it always remained consistent: consistently horrible, and no one wanted to be bothered with being there unless they absolutely had to.

It was inside one of these tiny and unkempt houses that a small boys screaming sounded. Neighbors were near enough to have heard, but such things meant nothing to these people. They were used to commotions at all hours from all sides and much like those off of Spinners End, those on it held little concern for whatever might be going on. Even the loud, monotonous, buzz of bug drone from the rivers banks did not stop in their whirring and humming. It was as if they too were used to such things as if screaming and shouting was as common and expected as the rise of the sun each morning—and down here, it was.

"Yeh _worfless_ focken' brat!"

The roar of Tobias Snape spilled out from his twisted mouth, heavily accented, and sloppy on a noxious exhalation of alcohol soaked breath. One of his enormous, hard, workman's hands closed around the tiny upper arm of a terrified boy who was so pale he looked as if he'd never seen a ray of sun. They boys black hair was limp and uncared for. It fell over his forehead and into his wide eyes which were just as dark and gleaming under a sheen of frightened tears. They boys breaths were panicky, his thin chest rising and falling quickly beneath a stained shirt which was ridiculously large on him. Some of the stains were old, but the large wet blotches were fresh, and the sheet on the cot in his closet of a bedroom matched. He didn't mean to let it happen, but sometimes when he slept, he didn't feel it in time to wake up and go to the bathroom properly.

"How focken' ol' are yeh now, boy!" Tobias shook the boy who gave a small scared squeak, as his body was shaken and his head flopped on his neck as if it wasn't secured well enough. The boy didn't know if he was meant to reply or not. His throat seemed closed however, and when he opened his mouth timidly to reply, nothing came out. "Too soddin' ol' for this rubbish, that's wot! Lookit ya all dirty an' pathetic an' stinkin' a'piss!"

The back of Tobias' enormous hand struck loudly into the side of the boys face, wrenching his head to the side. The boy's face was curtained behind his hair but for the end of his large nose and the bottom of his slight chin. His thin lips quivered and he closed his eyes tightly, resigning himself not to scream again or what was more likely—to cry. The boy could feel every horrible feeling building up inside of his body, making it tremble and quiver, making his lungs and throat ache and his eyes sting with need to release it but he knew he'd only be in more trouble. His father hated crying. His small hand touched the side of his face where it throbbed from the hard slap. His other shoulder ached and his arm was beginning to feel numb from the unrelenting grip his father still held around it.

"Toby, please!" The boys mother—tall, thin, pale, black-haired—spoke up in a timid voice from behind her drunk and furious husband. The boy looked up at her through his lank hair with pleading eyes, but she seemed to be trying hard not to look at him. Instead she kept her eyes on her husband, her jaw set tight, her hands and slender twig like fingers wringing themselves as she went on in a voice that trembled just as much as her son was. "He's only five years old. He doesn't mean-"

Tobias' reached out for her with the same hand he'd slapped his son, and curled his sausage-thick fingers into the fabric of his wife's shabby and faded nightgown. He yanked her near to him, their noses pressed together, and snarled.

"Eileen-"

"Mummy!" The boy squeaked.

"Shuddup!" Tobias roared at him, turned back to his wife, advised her with spit flying off his words to do the same, and then gave her a great shove. Eileen fell backwards onto the stone floor, and lay still for a moment. Her hair was spilled over her face and her gown so far up her legs that her son could see the sick colorful smudges of bruises both old and new that tattooed her thighs.

"M-mum!" The boy was now hiccupping with sobs that he tried desperately to keep from coming. He smooshed his hand against his lips as if that would help. Tears spilled over his long black lashes and down his sallow cheeks. His father's heavy hand was colliding with his head again, horrible things were being screamed at him, but he could hardly make sense of them as he was dragged just a few feet into the cubby of a bathroom.

"…see to it ya do it n'more boy!"

His father was shouting, his eyes flashing as if fire was behind them. His brownish rotting teeth were bared in a monstrous snarl of twisted lips set below a bulbous nose and above a prominent chin that was poorly shaven. He wasn't holding the boy by his arm anymore, but by the back of his oversized and filthy shirt. The boy barely felt the stinging or tingling that was needling back into his arm as the numbness drained out of it. The faucet for the dingy, black-ringed bathtub had been turned on, and the pipes gave a great rumbling quiver before a gush of water that sounded unearthly loud to the boy pelted into the tub in which a moldering stopper had been shoved into the drain.

"Tha's where yer goin' boy. Y'see?" Tobias leaned the boy over the edge of the tub, both hands wrapped savagely into the scraggly black hair. They boys prominent nose was just shy of touching the shallow surface of the water. He could smell the overwhelming sour of mildew and mold. The water touched the tip of his nose, and with a horrible, taunting laugh, his father yanked him back a bit, just enough to put a bit more space between the boy and the rising water.

"Goin' soak yer fock-ugly head 'til it gets through to ya. Which'll prolly be _never._" Tobias leered. He yanked the boy back again as the water rose over the tip of his nose. "Goin' go for a swim, wash this greasy mop a' yours, grind yer nose to the bottom an' maybe leave ya ta rot. What use're ya anyway? Jus' anuffer worfless bitch ta take me har' earned money!"

Again Tobias yanked the boy back, tormenting him with the rising water, and sending sharp pain through the frail neck with his careless twists and turns of the boys head as he struggled though he was too small and weak against his large father to have any hope of getting away. The boys frantic cries begged him to stop, he sobbed—unable to stop—that he would be good and not wet the bed again.

"Please, please Fa-"

The boy's pleas were cut off as his head was plunged under the cold water, his mouth still opened on its last word filled with water that he tried to swallow down rather than to inhale, but his nose had filled up too and his throat burned as the liquid poured down and choked him. His nose screamed with pain as it was jammed against the bottom of the tub. His fathers hand pressed even harder at the back of his immersed head. The boy waved his small arms, the large sleeves of his shirt flapping and dangling into the water. He kept struggling because it was instinct, and just now there was nothing left in him but that. His father still held him under, crushing his nose so hard against the floor of the tub that among the seemingly magnified rush of water that still pounded from the faucet, the boy could hear a sickening crackle and the pain in his nose doubled and seemed to fill his whole face. His throat felt on fire, and his lungs ached and throbbed with need for oxygen and to cough out the water that had gotten in. His struggling began to lessen, and a heavy, dizzy, feeling began to swim into his head and wrap some sort of gauzy barrier between himself and the pain at various points in his body. The pain in his nose felt dull and far away, his chest felt impossibly tight but it wasn't hurting anymore, and his shoulder might as well have been across the street for what he could feel of it. The haze coming over him was warm and comforting, but then his body began to act again of its own accord, as if it knew this was its last chance before that warmth took over for good. _I have to get out…_

The thought exploded into the boys mind, and he felt a renewed strength and will to fight again. His arms jutted into the tub, his small hands finding the bottom and palms resting against it. He gave a great shove up against his father, his arms trembling like spaghetti, his neck crying out in pain, bubbles exploding from his mouth and his lungs gulping in even more water—and then suddenly, the pressure at the back of his head was gone and he whipped his head out of the water, gasping and choking, coughing out water and taking in such tremendous breathes of air that he felt as if he would explode from it.

For a few moments the boy just lay there against the broken and dirty tiles, his fingertips twitching, his eyes rolling exhaustedly up to the ceiling, his thin chest heaving and falling in watery gasps. He was vaguely away that his nose was throbbing, and a diluted taste of blood seemed to be on his lips. With much effort, the boy curled onto his side, and then propped himself up on his knees. For a moment he thought he was going to vomit, but the urge passed, as he watched water from his soaked form pool around him, dappled with dots of blood that dripped warmly from his nostrils. He managed to look up, though his neck gave protest after having been abused. He saw his father lying motionless, his legs sprawled across the small space of floor, his back slouched into a corner and half against the door. The boy, now terrified again, backed himself up into the tiny space between the stained and smelly toilet stool, and the sink that was no longer to be used because the bend in the pipe had rusted through. There he stayed in a tight, shivering ball, his hands clamped over his mouth to make sure he kept quiet.

Moments later, the door was pushed as opened as it could be with his father partially against it, and his mother slipped inside. She stepped over Tobias's legs, turned the water off just as the tub was ready to spill over, and then looked back to her husband again. She knelt for a moment studying him, paying no attention to the boy huddled up in the corner and bleeding on himself. Without turning to look at him, she spoke to him, in a quiet voice that was eerily calm given the circumstances.

"Severus, go to your room."

Severus reluctantly un-wedged himself from the cramped hiding place, carefully stepped over his fathers large booted feet, pried the door open enough to let himself out, and scampered to his room. He stopped only to grab his flattened pillow from off of his cot, and then hid himself away in the closet. Up above him a few odd and pieces of clothing hung lopsidedly from bent wire hangers. The bottom contained only his one pair of shoes which were both too small and so worn that there were holes in the dirty canvas and the sole of one of them flopped like a tongue when he walked. As was most things in the house, the closet too was tiny, but so was Severus. He felt especially small and helpless just now, and his cold, frail, arms held tightly to his pillow which was splotched and stained brownish from sleep-drool, a greasy head, and tears that fell too often in the night.

"Severus?" His mother's voice which was never loud anyway, came very quiet and muffled. He heard the knob turn, and then the door creaked open. From the corner and underneath the shabby clothing, Severus could see her pale and boney legs, and the bottom of her nightshirt. "Come out." She said simply, and so he crawled out, still clutching to his pillow. She made no move to rush to him, to take him into her arms, to fawn over him or offer him any sort of comfort.

"S-sorry..mu-um." He said in a faint voice that barely conveyed the stuttered syllables. His throat still stung horribly, and the taste of blood was still in his mouth. He didn't look at her, but kept his eyes downwards on his pillow, noticing that now it was smeared with blood also. Eileen turned her back to him, peeled the wet sheet from his thin mattress, and flipped it onto the other side. Little good it had done, as the wetness had already begun to seep through. She pursed her lips together so tightly at this that they seemed to disappear. She muttered something under her breath, then turned back to Severus who was soaked and shivering, his hair clinging to his face and neck, his enormous shirt suctioning to his pale, fragile looking frame.

"Severus."

He looked up at her timidly, his cheeks red with embarrassment from what he had done to cause such a scene tonight.

"You okay, Mum?" He asked her so very quietly.

"Yes." She said cooly, and sat down at the end of Severus's cot. "What happened to your father?" She asked, looking down her long and hooked nose at him. His brows knitted together in confusion, an expression which hurt his swollen nose—as if it needed to be any larger.

"Dunno wha' 'appen mum. He…was…hol'in me down in…in there." Severus shivered hard, for a moment the sensation of the water closing in on him back again as though he were still struggling and drowning. "An' then…alls a sudden…'ee was offa me." Severus shook his head painfully, droplets of water coming off the wet tendrils of his hair. "Dunno. Is 'ee…awright?"

Severus wished darkly that no, his father was not all right. He hoped for a moment that maybe something really bad had happened to his father, and that he wouldn't get up from the washroom floor, that he'd never get up again and never yell anymore or drink or curse or hit. Severus' eyes welled with tears again. He knew it couldn't be true, and he knew he was horrible for thinking such things.

"He will be fine." Eileen said, her expression not having changed, but still hung in grim seriousness upon her features. "You simply stunned him, Severus. You…you're magical. You see…" She lowered her soft voice even further, and when she spoke again Severus had to move closer to be able to hear her. She bent close to him, her lips near his ear. "I am a witch, and you are a wizard."

Severus gasped, and for moments stood completely still, clutching limply to his pillow.

"Wha' d'you mean?" He finally asked, unable to believe her.

She laid her hand upon the top of his head, and spoke some strange word, and Severus gasped again. His entire person was dry. She then touched his shirt, said that word again, and it and his underpants were both dry as well. He dropped his pillow and snatched up the end of his shirt, lifting it up and peering at his grayish underwear beneath as if to make sure they really were dry. The elastic band that hugged his bony hips was frayed at one edge, and his mother touched this too, with the tips of her pale fingers.

"Reparo." She said, and the elastic mended itself. Severus's eyes were wide, and his fingers, much like smaller versions of her own, ran across the mended spot in wonder.

"We—we can do magic?" He asked her in awe, his mouth hung slightly open revealing his crooked and dingy teeth.

Severus climbed up onto the cot, a million questions clamoring to be asked. He listened to his mother speak of such things for hours, only daring to interrupt her now and then with a question simply because his growing excitement could no longer be contained at some points. She told him in hushed tones about a place called Hogwarts where young wizards and witches went away for school. She told him about the big scarlet train that took them there, and how one reached the platform by running through a barrier that was hidden from 'Muggles' which were non-magical people. She told him so many things that by the time she had finished for the night, he had nearly forgotten about the horrific scene from earlier, and his head felt on the verge of exploding with information and possibilities, and his young heart the same felt like bursting with hope.

"Mum, wait!" Severus stopped her with a small hand clinging to her nightgown. "If we're magic…then…then we don' 'afta stay do we? We could—we could leave, an' go live in the magic world!" His dark eyes looked up at her with a hopeful, pleading, light in them. She looked down at him sourly.

"No." She said plainly, and reached for the doorknob.

"But why!" Severus blurted out. She looked upon him even more severely.

"I am committed to your father, Severus."

"But…but…" Severus stammered. He felt as if she had just slapped him too. The pains from the nights worse experiences at his fathers hands reared up again and made him remember that he still hurt, and that he would hurt the next time his father went mad about something. "But wha' 'bout me, Mummy? He hurts me…" Severus hated how his last words came out on a whine. His mother wasn't looking at him now, but at some spot on the wall above and behind him. She looked cold, devoid of any comfort he longed for.

"He hurts me too, Severus. Go to bed." She opened the door then, but turned back to him once more, watching as he climbed up onto his cot. The dark urine stain had soaked through to this side by now, but it was beginning to dry up a bit. Severus was staring at it. "I can't fix that." She said, nodding slightly towards the slow-drying stain. "There's been enough magic done in this house tonight, and there wont be anymore. It isn't allowed. Do you understand?"

She waited for Severus to look up at her and nod, his dry hair now hanging in clumped ropes over his ears and at the sides of his face. His nose and eyes were swollen, dark purple bruising like a harsh mask against the pale skin. She looked away from him quickly, and left, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as she had gone, Severus scurried down off of his cot and across the tiny room to the one window. He stood on tip toe to reach the ledge and peer out into the night, up at the stars winking in the sky, at the moon hanging above the shadowy, smelly chimney. Somewhere out there, far away from Spinners End, there was a place for Severus Snape. All he had to do was make it until he was eleven years old, and then he would get a letter, be whisked away on a speeding scarlet steam engine, and he would be free from horrible people and horrible things. Hope bloomed strongly in his chest once more. He turned away from the window, crawled back into bed, and closed his eyes as he hugged his pillow. Severus drifted to sleep with a smile on his battered face, as he imagined how wonderful his life would be one day.

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><p>An: Please review! I like to know what you all think whether it be good or bad. The only way I know if anyone gives a flying duck about the fic is if you guys let me know! :)


	2. Anteoculatia

Thank you to everyone who alerted and/or favorited this story: Muse1347, JupiterJack567, Sapphire addict, ErdbeerRei, and xAngle-Of-The-Operax and special thanks to: Bob, Honoo Moeru, RavenclawBabe, DK, for the reviews! You guys are great! So here's the next chapter. Keep letting me know what you think, or at least that you're sticking with me and still reading. I appreciate it!

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><p>Tobias was at work, down at the mill, and the house was so quiet. It couldn't really feel peaceful, as if the walls themselves were infected with the discord that was constant in the household. Still, it was quiet and that was almost as good. Severus climbed into the ratty chair that his father always sat in when he wanted to hoist bottles of beer and rage about political things going on in the newspaper—or really, rage about anything in general. His father really didn't seem to like anything. He felt so small sitting in that chair, his feet dangling but not touching the floor. He wiggled them, his socks mismatched, filthy, and one sporting a hole that was large enough for most of his toes to poke through. He pointed an invisible wand at the hole in his sock and whispered the word his mother had whispered to him one night, a couple years ago when he had nearly been drowned in the bathtub but more importantly—that was the night Severus Snape had learned that he was a wizard.<p>

"Reparo." The word did nothing to mend the hole. He twisted around in the chair, leaning over the arm and peeking around the tall back of it to glance at his mother who was sitting on the dirty floor with a dusty book in her lap. The sound of her now and then turning a page was the only whisper in the room, besides his muttered magic, but she had seemed not to hear it.

"Severus, you're not to be in your Father's chair." She said coldly, not looking up from her book.

Severus rolled his eyes behind her back. It wasn't as if his father was home right now, nor would his father notice he had been in it. Severus didn't dispute his mother, though. He had learned very early on in his life that it was best to stay quiet, though he found that he often grew weary of it. There were plenty of times he wanted to scream just as loudly as his father, to yell the horrible curses and names that his father called him back into his Father's face, but he was too afraid to do so. He was horribly small, and his father was—well just plain horrible, and certainly much bigger than Severus was.

He slid out of the chair and approached his mother, looking curiously over her shoulder. She sat with her legs curled up beneath her, on a sooty rug next to the fireplace. Off to one side of the fireplace was a bookcase built into the wall and crammed full of old looking books. Severus had often stood in front of the towering case of books and when he was old enough to read he had looked over as many titles as he could see from his height. His mother usually shooed him away when he became too curious, however. She wouldn't let him touch them, and he itched to take one down, to touch the dusty cover, open it, read the words written on the yellowed pages.

Over his mother's shoulder he caught a line of typeface before she snapped the book closed, a little puff of dust floating up from the pages. Her brows sat black and flat above her eyes—eyes that were like dark, cold coals. Her thin lips were flattened into a serious line and she looked at him this way for a few moments. He waited for her to either glare at him for being nosy, or for the look to soften away—he was more hopeful for the latter. However, she did neither. The chilly expression remained the same as she handed the book to him.

"I suppose you're old enough." She said, plucking another book from the case. "These books were enchanted a long time ago. To your Father, they appear as various Muggle titles. If he were to open one, he would see lines of poetry, or prose, or perhaps recipes."

Severus turned the book in his hand, he could tell the cover had once been red but now it looked more brownish, the corners worn and one missing. The spine of the book read in small black letters; _British Government: Edition 1._

"Look harder." His mother said, pulling another book from the shelf.

Severus stared harder at the book, a small gasp of delight escaping his lips that were thin like hers. The author's name and title had changed to _Owle Bullock: "Secrets of the Darkest Art"._ Severus gave a shiver of glee and excitement as his tiny, dirty, fingers ran reverently over the magical letters. He could hardly take his eyes from the book, but then he realized that beside him was a whole shelf, which from his vantage point of being a small boy and sat upon the floor, seemed to tower endlessly above him.

"Can—can I read it, Mum?" He asked, his voice very quiet.

"I don't know. Can you?" She said, sliding a couple more books towards him.

"I mean—_may_ I read 'em Mum? Please!" He scooped up the other two books which as Muggle titles read _The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald _and _The Crucible by Arthur Miller._ The first title shifted into an introductory book on charms. That book was very worn, and at the bottom of the cover in a small, tight, script was his mother's name: _Eileen Prince. _This must have been one of her books for school. The second book title shifted into _A History of Magic 1__st__ Edition._

His mother nodded her head at him in response, loose strands of black hair whispering around her white face, fallen down from the severe bun she always wore at the back of her long and slender neck. Before he could stop himself, he had flung himself at her and hugged her tightly. She stiffened.

"Severus, that's enough." She pushed him back.

He was too excited over the books to really care at the moment about his mothers lack of affection. He scooped the old books into his arms and hurried towards his room, but then turned back to her.

"Can I take 'em outside?"

His mother stared at him for a moment, at his usually dour face so alight with happiness, at his small arms encircling the books, the milk-white skin marred with bruises of varying color and states of healing.

"Yes, but take the jacket by the door. Cover them up." She said, and Severus knew that she didn't mean for him to cover the books.

He had to wear that big old coat whenever he went out to play. He rolled the sleeves up many times so his arms wouldn't be completely lost in the long sleeves. The coat itself was almost comically enormous on him; it hung down to his knees and it was always shifting off of one shoulder or the other. Sometimes he ran around the grass letting it fly out behind him pretending it was a cape and that he was some sort of hero, even though he knew he never would be. Heroes were handsome, and people loved them. Severus Snape was an ugly little boy, and no one even liked him.

But right now he might as well have been Superman soaring over tall buildings, because he felt a sort of elation that was rare for him. He crossed the stony, pot-holed street and wove through the tall grass and down the litter-strewn bank to the edge of the polluted river. The water moved brown and sluggish and looked more like sewage than actual water. It didn't bother Severus, he was used to the way it looked and smelled. He spent a lot of time here watching the bugs crawl over the garbage and dirt, listening to their varied songs, skipping stones, thinking, watching the sun hang low in the evening and then dip down red in the brown hazy sky before disappearing. Then the moon would come out and almost rest at the top of the smoke stack and bats would swoop down over the black river and he would go home, back towards the tiny, unhappy houses, with their lights on through broken and dirty windows.

Severus dropped to his knees, the worn patches on his jeans thinly protecting his skin from abrasion. He held the three books in one arm, the top one in danger of toppling off, and with his other he swept garbage and debris away to clear a little patch on the soft earth. He spread the books out, his dark, contemplative eyes sweeping over each one as excitement bubbled and buzzed through him. Which one to read first? He nibbled at his broken nails for a moment before choosing the one that drew his attention the most: _Secrets of the Darkest Art._

Severus liked to know secrets, and he was good at keeping them—it was easy when he had no one to tell them to—though he sometimes wished that he did.

He tucked a lock of greasy black hair behind his ear and opened the book onto his lap. He read eagerly, taking everything in though some of it he had to read over multiple times to understand it, and still sometimes he wasn't so sure. However he still had four years until he would leave this place behind for Hogwarts and the world of magic so he had plenty of times to read the many books in the book shelf at home and try and make sense of them. The sun rose above him in the sky as he read on, high and hot at noontime, baking down upon his fair skin. He had stopped his reading only to take the obnoxious jacket off and tie the rolled arms of it around his gaunt waist, it was just getting too warm to continue wearing it, and no one was out here to see the marks on his arms anyway. His dilapidated shoes followed shortly after the shed jacket, and were tossed near a tangle of weeds.

Halfway through the dark arts book, he had to put it down and process. There was just _so_ much and his eager mind wanted to be filled with more but he was afraid his head might just explode if he didn't take a break. He curled his bare toes into the soft silt at the rivers edge and hugged his knees as he looked out over the slow moving sludge, thinking very deep thoughts for an eight-year-old boy. The inner workings of his mind were only interrupted at the burping sound of a frog, which nearly startled him. It was just a few feet in front of him, its front legs in the water and its larger back ones still in the mud, as if it was undecided about where it wanted to go. Severus' eyes twinkled and he leaned forward very carefully, hunched and preparing to spring up on it. It gave another burp sound, and he lunged at it, splooshing into the mud and splashing mucky, smelly, water into his face. His small hands were barely wrapped around the large frog which was croaking and wiggling frantically in attempt to get away.

"No, no you don't!" Severus squeezed a little harder to keep his grip on it, but the skin was muddy and slippery and it nearly got away—he just barely grabbed it by one of its long back legs and there it dangled from the boys fist jerking and ribbitting.

Severus tugged his jacket from his waist and quickly wrapped the frog up in it to keep it from escaping him once again, and climbed back up the slippery bank, mud squishing between his toes as he went. He felt victorious as he sat back down by his three books, the lump of fabric with frog in it wiggling in his lap. He wiped his dirty hands on his shirt and then opened the dark arts book again, flipping through pages until he found what he was searching for. He carefully opened the bundle of jacket, his heart hammering with anticipation. He didn't have a wand, but there was some talk in this book of wandless magic, though it was usually a more advanced sort of art, and Severus wasn't even old enough to be labeled a beginner. However, he remembered what he had done to his father when he was five years old, so he wasn't deterred from trying. Unluckily enough, the accidental stunning of his father hadn't deterred his father either, so said the bruises up and down Severus' bare and now filthy arms.

The green and brown frog in his lap seemed to scowl up at him, though he wasn't sure if frogs could scowl. Severus had seen a lot of scowls and it involved displeased looking eyebrows, and frogs did not have eyebrows. Severus pointed at the frog, a very serious expression of concentration on his dirt splashed face.

"An-teo-cul-atia!" He said slowly, sounding the word out. He watched the frog for any signs of growing antlers as that was what this particular hex was supposed to do. The frog just scowled without eyebrows. "Damn it. Ante-o-culatia!"

He tried again, saying the word a little faster. Still, there was nothing. He tried a couple more times, emphasizing different parts of the word each time he spoke it, but still the frog did not grow antlers. Severus was disappointed, he would very much have liked to see a frog sprout antlers.

"Fine, jus' bugger off then." He dumped the frog out of his lap, glaring at it slightly, but then his mouth fell open. The frog hopped over a broken piece of brick and a crushed can, and had almost disappeared before Severus was up and scrambling after it.

"Wait!" He called, as if it would listen.

Severus hurriedly scooped up his three books, and took off after the frog which just hopped into a patch of tall grass.

"Come back!" He called, his voice breaking up into a fit of giggles.

The hex had worked, but not quite properly. The frog had grown a small bony protrusion...on its arse. Severus kept after the frog as well as he could, stumbling over garbage, the tall grass swishing against his ragged jeans. He had almost caught up with it when one of his feet came down on a chunk of glass. A wail of pain followed by a jumble of swearwords came out of his mouth as he pitched forward, his books flying from his arms and spreading across the ground. The frog wiggled its way into a hole in a rotting tree stump, giving a burpy goodbye and one last glimpse of its horned arse.

Severus sat up and twisted his leg up so he could see the bottom of his foot. A large chunk of bottle-green glass was lodged into the arched middle, a trickle of blood winding down the sole that was blackened with dirt and mud. Severus grabbed the glass, bit down on his lower lip, and pulled. It came out easily, at least. The blood flowed freer from the gash, and painted his fingers as well. With a sigh he tossed the chunk towards the river. He looked back down at his bleeding foot and mumbled without much hope of it really working 'reparo'. He remembered his mother using that word to repair the frayed band of his undershorts the same night he had found out about being magical. He had tried to use it multiple times since but it had never served him as well as it had her. He was doubtful that it would work on something like a cut anyway, and he must have been correct because nothing happened, except that the crimson kept dripping from his foot.

He took his smock-like shirt off, revealing an underfed figure with a terribly thin waist and the ridges of his spine and ribs. His shoulders were small and knobby, and the blades of his shoulders looked pointy, like some sort of giant eyeteeth trying to break through from the inside out. His greasy hair hung around his face and shoulders like little black snakes, some at the back of his head matted together. He washed as little as possible—up until his mother would finally notice and make him do it. He didn't like to go into the washroom any more than he had to. It still held bad memories for him and although he suspected it was all in his head, he still felt afraid every time he sat foot in there, as if his father would rush in and shove his head beneath the water again. Just thinking of it made his chest and throat feel horribly tight, so he avoided that haunt. For a boy with black hair that was unnaturally oily anyway, the infrequent washing made it all the worse. However, his clothing was just as poor and dirty looking, so it all happened to match in a very odd sort of way.

It was one of these pieces of stained clothing that he held now in his hands and wound around his foot to take care of the bleeding. He tied the shirt which was now a makeshift bandage and then picked himself up, and limped around to collect his fallen books. He knew in a little while he would become tolerant to the pain that was throbbing down to his toes and up to his ankle, but for now, he wanted something to take his mind off of it. Having collected all three books and brushing them off a bit, he sat back down in his new found spot among the tall grass, and opened _A History of Magic_. The top of his oily head could barely be seen over the weeds that grew along the river bank amongst the garbage. Severus Snape blended in perfectly there.

By the time the sun had begun to go down and the tall weeds began to cast skeletal shadows over Severus, he had finished _A History of Magic_ and gotten about half through the potions book, which he found equally as intriguing as the one on dark arts. The low light and long reading was beginning to strain his eyes though, and sometimes the magical text shifted and a sentence speaking of a certain potion would trail off into something that made no sense and he knew it was pieces of the Muggle book coming back through. Severus rubbed his eyes, and looked back at the page.

_This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. _

Severus closed the book, the title as he knew it would now reading back to _The Great Gatsby. _Whatever passage he had stumbled upon in the Muggle form of the book had hit home with him. It sounded like Spinners End, like most of Cokeworth, really. It reminded him of home, and he knew that he needed to be there lest he get in trouble for being back too late. Severus unwound the fabric from his foot. It had been bandaged up for hours now, and the bleeding had ceased. The shirt however was very bloody, and it wouldn't do to take it home as such. He washed it as best as he could at the rivers edge and rung out the excess water. There were still faint coppery stains on some of the shirt where the blood would not completely come out, but now those stains just blended in with the rest. He slipped the wet material over his head. By the time he got up to the house it would probably be nothing more than damp, the material was very thin. He grabbed his mother's books and made his way back up the bank.

He opened the door slowly, peeking in and hoping to sneak by without capturing his father's attention. The large man was slouched in his favorite chair, a toppled battalion of empty beer cans already around the bottom of the chair and his large feet. He was grinding his broken and rotting teeth, his thick brows drawn into an angry expression that for him was very normal.

"An' the soddin' mill jus' laid off more a' us today. Reckon soon they'll be tryin' to boot me arse ou' the door as well. Heh. An' af'er all the years I put in fer 'em breakin' me bloody-focken' back. What d'they care, huh? No one does though, ain't that sweet? Got a bitch that sits home knittin' all day while I bus' me back on the dock all day long—and she don' care either, do yeh 'Leen?"

Tobias didn't look at Eileen as he said this, he was staring straight ahead over the top of his beer can with glazed looking eyes.

Tobias took a swallow, and Elieen shifted stiffly in a straight backed chair near the fireplace where she was indeed knitting a scarf even though cold weather was not yet arriving. Knitting was one of her few pleasures, though one would not know it by watching her in the act. Her face was as serious as ever, a line between her black brows as the long needles moved in her thin and agile hands.

"Toby..." Eileen said quietly, glancing away from her knitting and at the top of her husbands head just seen over the back of his chair. "You know that isn't—of course I appreciate you." She amended quickly from what she had begun to say, which was a phrase that her husband would have no doubt twisted into her accusing him of being a liar. Instead of that, he snorted loudly at her.

"Bitch." Tobias spat, draining the last out of his can and tossing it down to join the others.

Tobias got up from his chair, the furniture giving a creak as his weight lifted from it. He took a couple of lumbering strides towards his wife, snatched her half-knitted scarf from her hands, and threw it into the fire. Eileen's shoulders slumped, the thin and lifeless line of her lips drooping down into a frown. She looked down dismally at the needles in her hands and the bit of yarn in her lap. There was still a small ball of it, but not enough to knit another scarf to replace the one that was now burning. Tobias wore a disgusting look of victory on his face; a smug twist of the lips, and a mean glimmer in his eyes. The light of the fire red and orange over his features, casting dark shadows upon him, made him seem as though he had come as a demon from hell to linger and make Severus' and his Mum's life miserable.

Tobias turned away from the fire and went back to his chair, sinking into it with a groan. He picked up a new beer, and opened it.

"Where's the boy?"

Severus' throat constricted. He held tightly to the books in his arms, and taking a deep breath that managed to go past the knot in his throat, he stepped inside.

"An' what was you doin', boy...spyin' a' the door?"

Severus swallowed hard.

"N-no Sir." He answered in a tiny voice. His father's eyes roamed over his pathetic and dirty form, coming to rest at his feet and then his father looked angrier than ever. Even before the words had come spilled from his fathers drunken mouth, Severus realized his mistake. Reading had taken his mind off of the pain in his foot. It hadn't even hurt him as he'd walked home..._without his shoes._

Tobias ranted about the shoes. He knocked the books from Severus' arms, cursed him, called him terrible names, hit him several times, raved, and finally demanded him back out into the night to collect his shoes. He could certainly not afford to by the boy a new pair, which he expressed in more hateful words, nor did the boy deserve them when he couldn't even take care of the ones he already had. Tobias went on about lack of respect, finishing by throwing an unopened beer can at his sons head. Severus barely dodged it. The can exploded like a bomb against the wall above his head and rained down a shower of beer suds.

Severus left the house as quickly as he could, one eye already swelling where the butt of his father's hand had caught him. It was completely dark out now, and there was no way he was going to find his shoes now. He stood at the edge of the road, at the top of the slope that lead down to the river. The bugs were whirring and singing loudly, frogs croaking in synch amongst the tall and whispering grasses. Bats swooped down, careening just above the tips of tall brush and down towards the river where they would flap and dance in nocturnal celebration.

Severus took a timid step forward, but he couldn't bring himself to go all the way. During the day snakes were alright, even interesting, when he could more likely spot and dodge them, or watch them from a safe enough distance. He wasn't sure that there were any in these parts that were particularly poisonous, but he also did not want to find out. Walking down to the river at night and bare of his shoes was not something he looked forward to doing. There weren't just snakes, either. Lots of creepy things came out at night time, and animals were always drawn to the cover of overgrown plants, the edge of the river for a drink, the garbage to nose amongst the old food wrappers and containers—and they were drawn to little skinny boys who went lurking after dark.

Severus shivered, and watched his surroundings warily through locks of oily hair. He glanced back over his shoulder towards the house where he lived at the very end of Spinners End. He was weighing the danger of going forward, or going back home. If he went home without his shoes, his father would _definitely_ beat him good. He might even take off his thick belt, and use that.

Severus moved carefully down the dark slope, deciding that the _possibility_ of being eaten by something unpleasant wasn't as scary as the _fact_ of what he would receive should he return home now. He had wished that he had ran across some sort of spell for light while he had been reading those books today, but unfortunately, he had not.

For what seemed like ages he blundered over the garbage and through the weeds, becoming more and more afraid and disoriented. A few times he thought he had heard strange noises, and he _knew_ that he had seen flashes of silvery eyes in the darkness. There was no way he would find his shoes. He couldn't go home. A nightmare played out in his head that he was stuck out here all night long, jumping at every sound, squeaking scared at every shadow, curled up alone in the darkness with nothing but prying eyes of predators whose teeth dripped with blood and hungered for more. He had tried hard not to cry but the longer he stumbled around blindly searching, the harder it became not to. Tears trickled over his dirty cheeks and dripped from the tip of his large hooked nose. Now and then he would stop to wipe the tears away on the back of his hand, but he found that he didn't like to stop for long because being still made him feel even more afraid, and while he was walking around, the pain in his foot didn't throb as much.

Severus kept telling himself to stay calm, but it was easier said than done. Finally he began to distract himself by listing in his head all the hexes he could think of that he had read in the dark arts book today. Since he was focusing on something other than the swooping bats, glinting eyes, and howling-hooting-hunting noises around him, his nerves began to calm a bit. He knew he would still be damn lucky to find his shoes, but at least he had succeeded in stopping his tears, and he thought he wasn't shaking as badly as he had been before.

More searching was in order, and so was more of not finding his shoes. The fruitless search went on for quite some time, along with the mentally repeated list of hexes, until a voice called out to him from up the bank at the edge of the gravel road. His mother was calling his name. He bounded through the dark debris and back up the bank, stopping doubled over from his hobble-run up the slope, clutching a stitch in his side.

"Ye—yes Mum?" He panted, trying to straighten up a little. He wanted to hope that she might say some magical word that would cause his lost shoes to appear in her hands, but he knew better. Instead she looked down her nose at him with thin lips pressed together and her eyes so dark they seemed deeper than the night.

"Go to bed." She said in a chilly tone. "At the first light of morning, you'll go get your shoes. As long as you can't take care of your things, you won't be allowed to read any more of my books."

Severus dropped his gaze glumly down to his bare toes, so pale that he could make them out rather easily even in the darkness. His posture and look was much like what his mother's had been when Tobias had cast her knitting into the fire.

"If you can't keep track of your shoes, then you certainly can not keep track of magic." This part she said in a voice that was so quiet it was nearly a whisper.

"Yes Mum." Severus said obediently, though he was devastated that he wouldn't be able to read more tomorrow. He supposed he should be glad that she had called him in, and that he hadn't been eaten by creatures, though maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.

Severus went right to his room, past his father who was now passed out and snoring in his chair, his last beer clutched crookedly in his enormous hand. Severus untied the big awkward jacket from around his waist and tossed it onto the cot, followed by his shirt—which was dry now—and his filthy and frayed jeans. He moved closer to the spread of clothing, a dark hairy leg having caught his eye. He reached into the pocket of the jacket, and drew out a fat and wooly spider that must have sneaked in while he had been blundering around in the dark. Severus opened his hand just enough to study it a bit more without it scrambling away. It's prickly legs moved against his hand, its many black eyes staring at him.

"Anteoculatia."

The spider sprouted a small, crooked, pair of antlers on top of it's rear end. Severus covered his mouth with his other palm and laughed a bit. He was imagining what would have occurred had he shouted that hex at his father earlier. Though he would never dare do so, it was still fun enough to think about. Severus slid off the cot and moved over to a corner of the room. There was a crack that led to a small hole at the base of the wall, and Severus put his hand down and shooed the hexed spider out the hole. It squeezed its furry body and eight legs through, and was gone. Severus curled back up on his bed with a mischievous smile on his thin lips as he imagined his father with antlers out his arse.

Morning came all too soon. His mother roused him from a thin sleep just as the sun had begin to rise and cast a sleepy glow over the hazy, scroungy, city of Cokeworth. While many of the cities men were putting in their early hours at work, Severus was searching the long dewy grasses and rubbish for his shoes. He finally found them and slipped them onto his feet. The soles were thin and worn, so much so that there was a hole in the bottom of one. The other sole was half unglued from the rest of the shoe, and when he walked it flapped like a dogs tongue out of its mouth. The laces were missing, which made them flop around on his feet, and the cloth sides were stained to black and ripped in multiple places. They were hardly worth picking them out from the rest of the rubbish, and certainly not worth all of the trouble they had gotten him into.

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><p>Reviews are nice :) Thanks a bunch for reading.<p> 


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